On Feb. 6-7, Mexico News Daily and Querencia hosted the “Future of Mexico Forum” at the Querencia Private Golf & Beach Club in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur. The forum brought together leaders from Mexico and the United States to discuss the future of Mexico across a diverse range of topics. As part of this forum, the MND team conducted a series of exclusive interviews with each of the speakers and will be sharing the highlights with you in this series.

The participants in the forum session “Migration and its impact on Mexico” were:

• Former Mexican Economy Minister Tatiana Clouthier, who will soon take up a new position as head of the federal government’s Institute for Mexicans Abroad. 
• Former United States Congressman and Senator Jeff Flake, who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey between 2022 and 2024.   
• Former United States Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson, who prior to her ambassadorship served as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. 

During a forum discussion with Aspen Institute executive vice president Elliot Gerson, and in interviews with Mexico News Daily, Clouthier, Flake and Jacobson discussed a range of issues related to migration and immigration — including the threat of mass deportations to Mexico during the second Trump administration.

This article draws on their comments in their discussion with Gerson and their remarks to Mexico News Daily.

A personal account of Mexico-US migration in years gone by

Jeff Flake told Mexico News Daily that during his childhood and youth his family employed Mexican migrant workers on their cattle ranch in northern Arizona.

At the time, Flake said, “the Border Patrol didn’t really patrol the border at all but they would sometimes do raids of farms [and] businesses far from the border.”

“… We had one worker, 19 times he was picked up by the Border Patrol and [he] just made his way back [to the U.S. from Mexico]. Sometimes they’d even flag down the Border Patrol when they needed a ride home for a celebration or a birthday party,” he said.

In the 1970s and ’80s, Flake continued, there was “a more seasonal, healthy pattern of migration, I guess, because it would tend to be the workers and not the entire family.”

“Then they started to enforce Border Patrol on the border and migrants would come and say, ‘Well, it’s tough to cross the border now so I’m going to stay and I’m going to bring my family,'” he said.

“… The [migration] pattern changed completely over time. But still, even in those latter stages [of a more open border], you didn’t have the security concerns that are paramount today,” Flake said.

Flake: The Mexico-US border is now ‘largely under control’  

Flake said that “the Trump administration, by reversing a lot of the executive orders the Biden administration did, has brought the border itself largely under control, as it was trending during the latter months of the Biden administration because he reversed his own policies.”

“I would argue that in the early days of the Biden administration, when he reversed some of the Trump policies, that was just a bright neon sign for the world, for smugglers all over the world to push people toward the border, and that led to an untenable situation,” he said.

“… For all intents and purposes it was almost … [an open border],” Flake said.

Clouthier on the need to address the root causes of migration

Clouthier, who ran Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2018 presidential campaign and later served as economy minister in his government, spoke about the expansion of the Mexican government’s “Sowing Life” reforestation/employment program to three Central American countries as part of a strategy to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty.

The program is “one way” to stem migration to and through Mexico, and to the United States, she said.

Clouthier noted that “one of things” ex-President López Obrador told former U.S. President Joe Biden “all the time” was that in order to reduce migration from Central America nations and other Western Hemisphere nations, “it was important to have investment and these programs that go the roots of poverty.”

She recalled that on one occasion when she was speaking with Biden, López Obrador and former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris about migration issues, Harris expressed concerns that U.S. foreign aid wasn’t always used as intended.

López Obrador — an advocate of cash transfers to disadvantaged people — “said that what you have to do is give the money directly to the people,” Clouthier said.

Clouthier advocates beefing up of security on Mexico’s southern border 

Most of the millions of non-Mexican migrants who reached the Mexico-U.S. border in recent years first entered Mexico via its southern border with Guatemala.

Jacobson, U.S. ambassador to Mexico between 2016 and 2018, described the border with Guatemala as “porous.”

Indeed, many migrants have entered Mexico unimpeded between official ports of entry by crossing rivers on the southern border.

While Mexico has used the National Guard to detain migrants on or near the southern border, Clouthier believes more has to be done.

“We do need to do something on the southern border — stronger,” she said.

Mexico to send more National Guard troops to the southern border

More legal migration pathways to US are needed

Clouthier, Flake and Jacobson all advocated the opening up of more pathways for people to migrate to the United States legally, including via an expansion of the existing H-2A temporary agricultural workers program.

“We obviously need to have more robust legal avenues for people to come, both those who are skilled in tech or those who are simply willing to work hard,” said Flake, who added that the numbers of people accepted via certain programs could rise during the Trump administration.

For her part, Clouthier highlighted that there is demand for workers in the United States, and said “there is a way to find a door” to more legal migration options “and not only close the door.”

She was highly critical of the Trump administration’s decision to cancel use of the CBP One app, which asylum seekers used to schedule appointments with U.S. immigration authorities during the Biden administration.

Jacobson: Trump’s mass deportation plan has created a ‘pervasive fear’ among immigrants in US 

Jacobson said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to carry out what he has called “the largest deportation operation in American history” has created “a pervasive fear throughout the United States” among immigrants.

Creating fear is an “intentional” tactic of the current U.S. government, she said.

The former ambassador to Mexico recounted the story of a young biomedicine graduate and talented cello player whose immigration status in the United States was regularized via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

Now, the young “dreamer” is “once again” afraid of being deported, Jacobson said.

The impact of mass deportations would be ‘staggering,’ Jacobson says 

If Trump keeps his word and deports millions of immigrants from the United States the impact on the U.S. economy and society would be “staggering,” Jacobson said.

To understand just how great the impact would be, she recommended watching the 2004 satirical film “A Day Without a Mexican,” which CNN described in 2012 as a “modern-day fable” that “provides a cautionary tale on the assumptions we make about the 11 million unauthorized immigrants who live and work in America every day.”

Flake told Mexico News Daily that undocumented migrants in the United States “in almost all cases” have “ties that bind” them to the U.S.

“They’re immigrants who are in the United States with a child who is a [U.S.] citizen, or a spouse who is a permanent legal resident, or some other tie that binds so these are very difficult things to work through,” he said.

Flake said he was “definitely concerned” about the United States losing a lot of immigrant workers if Trump’s mass deportation plan eventuates.

“We would be a poorer country in the U.S. without people who are willing to come and just work hard,” he said.

For her part, Clouthier highlighted — as President Claudia Sheinbaum has done — that 80% of the earnings of Mexicans in the United States remain in the U.S.

She asserted that the United States “cannot be treating immigrants the way they are” and declared that Mexico and the U.S. “are married and there’s no way we can get divorced.”

Mexico ready to receive deportees, says Clouthier 

Clouthier highlighted that the Mexican government has prepared to receive Mexicans deported from the United States with the “México te abraza” or “Mexico embraces you” program.

Sheinbaum announces support plan for Mexican deportees as Trump takes office

The program includes monetary assistance for deportees, temporary accommodation, transport within Mexico and help to obtain essential identity documents, among other measures.

Clouthier also noted that the private sector has committed to employ a significant number of deportees, and stressed that Mexico, like the United States, needs more workers, especially in the north of the country.

The former economy minister stopped short of making a prediction about whether Trump’s mass deportation plan will eventuate, but noted that “Democrats have deported more people than Trump” did in his first term as president.

“Nonetheless they were very quiet at doing so,” Clouthier said.

“… And Trump needs to speak out so he can give the show to his people,” she said.

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies ([email protected])